KIKKOMAN SOY SAUCE RECIPE CHALLENGE

I love cooking and pretty much cook from scratch every day. I find that even if it's only me, it's much nicer to sit down and eat something fresh, than eat a ready meal, a bowl of cereal or nothing at all.

So when I saw the information about a cookery challenge using soy sauce I thought I'd give it a try.

Most people have a bottle of soy sauce in the cupboard and we use it at least once a week. Stir fries are the obvious choice and then it goes really well in all sorts of marinades. We especially like the Nigella Lawson one that uses soy sauce, apple juice, star anise and maple syrup for a marinade for ribs and chicken. It also great to add a bit of a kick to gravy with the Sunday roast.

So a stir fry and rice dish...oh, then I looked at the criteria....the recipe had to be a "one pot" or "one pan" recipe and it couldn't be oriental in style.

So back to the drawing board!

I then set my own criteria.....

1. It had to be a recipe that the whole family would eat.
2. It had to be simple to prepare and cook.
3. It had to use tasty ingredients that were easily obtained and not expensive.
4. It had to be "one pot".

My teenagers are great fans of anything with a barbecue flavour, so I decided to make my own "pulled pork".

INGREDIENTS

A piece of boneless shoulder of pork (this recipe assumes it is a 1kg piece, but obviously you can just multiply up the other ingredients if you use a larger joint)

5 fl oz tomato ketchup

4 fl oz cider vinegar

1 fl oz apple balsamic vinegar

2 heaped tablespoons soft light brown sugar (you can use dark brown, but the pork will turn out darker)

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Then the nice easy part (ideal to put on in the morning before you go to work). Mix all the sauce ingredients together with 5 fl oz warm water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Then put the piece of pork in a slow cooker, pour over the sauce, put on the lid and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours, until the pork is soft and melting and will shred with a fork.

The sauce can be boiled down to a thick consistency in a pan to use as a barbecue sauce. You can use arrowroot to thicken if necessary, but I generally find that just boiling it up for 5 or 10 minutes is enough.

This pork can be served in a number of ways - with jacket potatoes and salad, in a bread roll, with pasta or rice. Whichever it is DELICIOUS!!

This blog post is my entry into the Kikkoman Best Blogger Recipe Competition 2014.